I was in an NPC’s car as she drove us across Night City when a thought occurred to me. We were driving at night to perform a risky stealth mission, which required me to break into a compound filled with military security so we could, to put it briefly, hack the planet. On the drive, two cars spawned out of thin air in front of us, blocking the road, but my driver didn’t react. We plowed into one of the cars as if it wasn’t there, sending it twirling into the air like it was stuffed with helium. Our own car wasn’t even slowed down.

The thought: Cyberpunk 2077 has as much in common with early ’00s Eurojank as it does with the Rockstar games it aspires to. I’m OK with this. If it’s a choice between a less polished Grand Theft Auto or a high budget Boiling Point, I’d choose the latter every time.

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If you’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 for a while, you may have noticed various status effect icons appearing next to your health bar, or noticed certain things happening to you but not knowing why. Our Cyberpunk 2077 status effects guide looks to answer any questions you may have about burning, bleeding, exhaustion, Cold Blood, nourishment, and any other effect it is possible to be affected by in this game. Below you’ll learn what each status effect actually does, and what each of the icons mean.

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Unlike the rest of the treehouse, I haven’t been playing that Cyberpunk 2077. Even still, I’ve already heard from many folks that the game is absolutely overflowing with dildos, phallic sex toys of all shapes and sizes erupting from every cyber-nook and hacker-cranny across Night City’s urban futurescape. Well, it seems even CD Project may admit it’s all a bit much, with the developers planning to rein in the “distracting” propagation of plastic dongers.

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Cyberpunk 2077

is without doubt one of the biggest ray tracing games that’s ever been released on PC, and it should come as no surprise that it’s also one of the most demanding. Like Metro Exodus before it, CD Projekt Red have gone all in on this ultra-realistic lighting technology to make Night City look and feel like a living, breathing city, using everything from ray traced reflections and shadows to three separate ray traced illumination techniques. Indeed, if you’ve been searching for an excuse to show off your new Nvidia RTX card, this is definitely the game you’ve been waiting for. Or is it? Night City can look spectacular with all of its ray traced bells and whistles switched on, but only a select few GPUs are really capable of depicting this futuristic cityscape at playable frame rates.

To help you get the best ray tracing performance, I’ve put together this handy guide, showing you what the game’s ray tracing looks like in the flesh compared to its regular non-ray traced quality settings, as well as what kind of performance you can expect to see at 1080p, 1440p and 4K across almost every Nvidia RTX card that’s available today, from the entry-level RTX 2060 all the way up to the brand-new RTX 3080. Regardless of whether you’re an existing RTX owner or are looking to upgrade once hardware prices settle down again, here’s everything you need to know about Cyberpunk 2077’s ray tracing settings.

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I get it. Every article, podcast and video revolves around one topic and you’re almost at breaking point. But… if you’re not there yet, then listen to this episode of The PC Gaming Weekspot! The Big Game is indeed a big game, so there’s a lot to say about Cyberpunk 2077.

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I’ll let you in on a secret, and that is that I think Cyberpunk 2077 is a decent enough game, but it annoys you by getting in its own way all the time. An example of this is the setting Night City itself. It’s a cracking city to have a wander around. I like how the districts really feel different, I like the strange warrens that are the multi-level covered street markets, I like the huge, hollow-centred blocks of flats that make playing the game like being inside that brilliant Judge Dredd movie (starring Karl Urban’s chin as Dredd). Night City is a marvellous, filthy monstrosity to explore, and this remains true as long as you don’t look at anything at ground level.

This is because when you look at ground level you see all the vans with pop-in textures, duplicate NPCs, NPCs spawning in and then disappearing again when you turn your back, cops that start shooting at you if you bump into them and then forget where you are if you move 30 feet away, palm trees that lean over like they’re screaming, and so on. Mostly, ground level is where the AI happens, and the AI is currently… not great. But if you look up the whole time, you see lovely pillars of concrete and neon, and everything is okay again. Observe some of my favourite views from Night City:

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One of the first choices you’ll make in Cyberpunk 2077 is that of your character’s appearance. There’s a fairly deep suite of customisation options to play with, and given that you’ll see your character every time you open your inventory you’ll want to put some time in. Once you’ve started your story in Night City you’ll probably be wondering whether you can change your appearance after the initial section. Here’s what you need to know.

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Cyberpunk 2077 is a game all about player choice, and that includes romance options. Aside from one-night stands and hiring prostitutes, there are a handful of more fleshed out characters who you can get to know and, if you play your cards right, you can start a more meaningful relationship with them. Our Cyberpunk 2077 romance guide will walk you through how to romance Judy, Panam, River, Kerry, and Meredith, so you don’t have to worry about whether you’re making any wrong decisions during your journeys.

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Yesterday, CD Projekt Red had a big emergency call with investors discussing the state of Cyberpunk 2077, and what it means for its DLC and multiplayer plans. It’s no secret that the game’s launch came with a helluva lot of bugs, I’ve experienced a ton myself on PC – but for players on last-gen consoles, Cyberpunk is in an even sorrier state. CDPR say their focus is now on improving the base game, but there are concerns the amount of work involved could impact new content planned for the next couple of years.

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Creating the best possible Cyberpunk 2077 build is a very layered process. Not only do you have to consider the attributes, skills, and perks to increase, but you’ve also got to consider the right weapons, mods, and cyberware to go along with a build in order to make it truly powerful. Our Cyberpunk 2077 builds guide will walk you through multiple top-tier builds, covering in detail the exact perks to unlock and weapons to use, to ensure you’re cleaning out rooms of enemies in record time even on the toughest difficulty settings.

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